Oh, how I wished we had brought two torches instead of
only the one that was now lost!
As I crawled about from rock to rock, guiding myself by the
indistinct sounds I heard, I blamed myself for not having listened
to Thora's words of expressed fear at the opening of the cave. That
she had the viking's stone in her possession was a matter of small
comfort to me when I seriously reflected upon the extreme danger of
the situation, and I feared that, in spite of the supernatural aid,
she might even now be drowned, and that I would never again see her
fair face in life.
But I was determined not to leave the cave until I had found her,
and, accordingly, I continued the search with growing consternation.
No response came to my constant cries of "Thora! Thora!" and I
wandered hither and thither in the difficult darkness for what
appeared to me fully an hour's time. I became hopeless, and even
thought of trying to find my own way out of the cavern, that I
might summon help from Crua Breck. But still I was urged by some
inward feeling to go onward yet a little further.
Passing at length round an abutting angle of ragged wall, I entered
what appeared to be the extreme chamber of the cavern; and here my
eyes were for a moment dazzled by the appearance of a bright though
thin beam of golden sunlight, which shone from the west through a
narrow fissure in the rock, and glittered upon the unruffled
surface of a large and deep pool of water.
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